Saturday, July 02, 2005

2 Poems Eliza Bishop

Luna Cat

Nimble peach and pressed against the window screen,shot through with fire, you see the nighttime's refractedglistening province of silence with two green-gold eyes.Your underbelly evidence of gravity in my one room ofwatermarks: flood, alluvium,

canoe. Having touched only the water of birth and thirstyou are an unusual elemental encounter. Suckling mincedlight you leave a trail of hair sweeping dust - clingingto me like magnets. Let me leap through my lonelinessto slink as your shadow, an indiscernible dark sidetied to the body by its own devices.

I do not talk. With what velocity is left, danglethe scent of now like so much honey, be the slowmagician. If only you could bestow truth withouthunger, un-anxious love, the ability to beperched on a windowsill in the dark pocket of nightand have no thought swimming toward the future.

Interlude

He had come to be her counterpoint. He was everywhere she moved,breathing hot air on her earlobe as she listened to trains passing inthe dark, straining for her as she filled the tea kettle with water,appearing on the window pane as she closed the blinds. He was suspendedalways a breath's distance from her body; she could never fully inhale,drop ink to rest on paper without feeling two hearts' beat in her chest,or bring a plum tomato to her lips without his kiss.

At times, when the silence seemed permanent and unforgiving, she wouldwrite letters addressed to herself. But it wasn't until the rainstormon the first of May that she spoke without a spliced tongue.

Her sister was washing a blue plate and they were conversing about yoga.The rain raced down the window in rivulets. Her chest seemed spaciousenough to encompass all the readiness for life she could imagine.Blanketed by the beats of rain she remembered her typewriter, in theliving room corner next to her yoga mat. Every nuance of light andcolor opened as she retrieved her objects. She sat down, opened thetypewriter to her hands, and a whole morning passed.

Who will you be? She posed. It's the credence of telling. Beginagain. Paint the bedroom walls a different color. Cut the curls fromyour head. Sleep with someone else. Change the blinds. Face theessence of silence where you can feel him looking at you.